


Bernie Breaks

by Brigzi16



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 11:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11058066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigzi16/pseuds/Brigzi16
Summary: Bernie finally breaks and reveals all to Nina





	Bernie Breaks

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of a Bernie and Nina friendship because Bernie needs a friend, she needs someone to support her. So I've decided to write this little ditty for you all

(Set a few weeks after tonight's episode. I think Bernie and Nina will become good friends (JUST FRIENDS!) and this idea cropped up in my head after the episode finished.)

Bernie was sitting in the office staring at the empty seat in front of her. Serena... it was becoming a common thing with Bernie thinking about her... well whatever Serena was to her at the moment. Nina had come swooping into AAU with such drive, such energy yet the woman was haunted by ghosts... ghosts of a lost child. Elinor... Oh Elinor. Bernie held so much guilt over Ellie's death. She had lost her partner to grief and Bernie was beginning to lose herself in general. How had she coped without Serena all these years? Yes there had been the army and Alex to help her cope with a failing marriage and an uneasy family life but this loss was something entirely different. The trauma surgeon sighs and leans over to the top drawer of the floor cabinet pulling it open. She reaches in and takes out her malt whiskey and a glass. She places them down on her desk and pours herself a generous double 

“I miss you so much Serena.” Bernie knew she was speaking to thin air but it was the first time she had said it in the hospital, in their-her office. Suddenly the sound of the door opening pulls Bernie out of her melancholy train of thought 

“Oh sorry Bernie I didn't realise you were in here” Bernie smiles weakly as her new co lead comes into the office. She sips at her whiskey and hides her silent hurt when Nina sits down “Are you alright?” 

“Yes, yes I'm fine” Nina could see Bernie had metre high walls around her, closing her off from everyone and everything. She had heard the rumours and murmurs surrounding the sudden departure of Serena Campbell but had never had the courage to ask any of the AAU staff for the real reasons. 

“Bernie may I ask you a question?”

“Of course” Nina takes a deep breath and looks at the closed off blonde in front of her. She has hoped Bernie and herself would become friends and that this line of questioning wouldn't put pay to that budding friendship 

“Why did Ms Campbell leave?” Bernie could feel her sorrow fill her at the sound of Serena's name filling her ears. It was clear Hanssen hadn't told Nina why the vacancy had come up on AAU “I've heard murmurs, whispers but I've been too afraid to ask” Bernie downs the rest of the glass she'd been nursing and looks at Nina for the first time since the woman had entered the office 

“I lied when I said I didn't have any idea about what you were going through with your son. I do, sort of.” Nina furrows her brow in confusion. Had Bernie lost a child too? Was that why she was so distant from everyone? “Ms Campbell wasn't just my co-lead, she was also my partner.” Nina, of course, knew Bernie and Ms Campbell had been in a relationship. It had been one of the first things Matteo had mentioned when he brought up the job on AAU but how did this relate to Bernie being familiar with the loss of a child? “At the turn of the year Ms Campbell lost her daughter after a car accident” Ah. There was the connection. Nina closes her eyes and swallows the lump in her throat 

“I see” 

“Serena struggled with her grief. Our relationship was fractious at the best of times and down right toxic at the worst moments. I was her rock but in the end my love wasn't enough to put her broken heart back together so she left to find herself again.” Bernie looks at the picture of herself and Serena that Jason had taken on Christmas morning. They had been so happy. So in love. “I could have left Holby after my marriage broke down but Serena gave me a reason to stay. She's the reason I have the trauma unit, this job but what she didn't understand was I didn't stay for the job or the unit I stayed for her. I stayed because I fell so hopelessly in love with her.” Nina looks at her co lead and just listens. It was clear that Bernie hadn't spoken about Serena Campbell at all since her departure. Bernie Wolfe wasn't coping. “Yes I made a mistake and ran away but I came back, I came home and for the first time in a long time I was happy. Truly happy. I was foolish enough to believe that our love could deal with anything that was thrown at it but I was wrong.” Bernie pours herself another glass and swills it before knocking it back in one “If Serena and I hadn't gotten together Elinor would still be alive”

“Why would you say that?” Nina couldn't believe the amount of guilt that Bernie was so very clearly carrying around. It radiated it from her. 

“Elinor and Serena argued just before Elinor got behind the wheel that day. Elinor didn't accept her mother's relationship with me. She called it a bizarre sapphic mid life crisis, claimed that I and Jason, Serena's nephew, had somehow stole her mother from her. She stormed away and went into the car park. She got behind the wheel and drove at her mother. Jason pushed Serena out of the way just in time. She must have struck her head on the steering wheel.” Bernie closes her eyes, remembering the events of that tragic day. She shakes her head before continuing “Elinor refused an examination claiming she was fine but an hour or two later she collapsed in the floor of the ladies' toilets and suffered a brain haemorrhage. She was announced brain dead after the neurosurgeons had tried and failed in stem the bleed” Nina couldn't imagine the pain and anguish that Serena must have felt. Yes her son had gone missing and she knew he was probably dead but for Serena to watch her daughter pass away in front of her must have been harrowing. “I was the reason they were arguing. I'm the reason Elinor is dead” Nina shakes her head and pushes back from the desk, dropping to the floor and kneeling in front of Bernie. 

“You are not to blame for Elinor's death. That girl couldn't respect her mother's choices. That had nothing to do with you. If Elinor had done the right thing and allowed the junior to examine her then may have been able to be saved” How long had Bernie been carrying around this guilt? It was suffocating the blonde, it was destroying her piece by piece

“What makes matters worse is there were traces of cocaine in Elinor's system. She was a user” Bernie had never told Serena about Elinor's bloods. She daren't with Serena going through such a deep depression. Knowing Elinor had started taking drugs again would have only made matters worse

“The drug would have accelerated the blood flow and made the haemorrhage worse. Elinor died because of her own faults. You were not to blame Bernie.” 

“I'm not coping Nina. Without Serena here I can't function properly. Work is all I have now, it's the reason I get out of bed in the morning. No one has even asked me if I'm coping. They think that Major Wolfe is strong enough to deal with anything but I'm not. Not this time.” Bernie sits back and looks at the bottle of scotch shaking her head knowing she can't drink any-more. She shouldn't have even had the two she knocked back “Serena is my one and without her it's as if I'm living in permanent darkness. I have this huge hole in my heart and soul that can only be filled by her. I don't know what I'll do if she doesn't come back. I don't know if I can stay here without her” 

“That is your decision to make Bernie. No one else can make it for you. I'm not here to replace Ms Campbell I know that isn't possible but you can't run AAU and the trauma unit on your own. Let me help you Bernie.”

“No one says her name. It's as if she's the one who is dead” Fletch opens the office door and it is shocked to see Bernie in such a state. He looks at Nina then at Bernie and swallows the lump in his throat. There was one thing that would upset Bernie and that was Serena.

“Sorry to interrupt but Mrs Davison is ready to go into theatre” Bernie knew she couldn't operate now she had had a drink. Nina was due to head home and Ric was late 

“I''ll take this one Bernie. You need to go home” Bernie nods her head and smiles at her new co lead. Nina was right. She couldn't stay now she had been drinking. She would endanger patients' lives. The blonde stands from her chair and moves past Nina and Fletch walking from the office. 

“She's not coping is she?” Fletch knew the reason why no one mentioned Serena and it was the fear of upsetting Bernie. He knew she wasn't coping well without Serena pulling double shifts whenever she could, opting for night shift when the chance arose. She didn't want to be sitting around thinking about everything

“No Nurse Fletcher she is not”


End file.
